Ministering to Prisoners' Families

FOCUS ON THE FAMILY – Dr. James Dobson

Prison is a lonely life, both for the inmate and the loved ones who have to get along without him or her. It's a vicious cycle: Absent fathers and mothers create broken homes, and broken homes often lead to even more crime. So how can churches help? Former inmate Manny Mill encourages Christians to reach out to prisoners' families and offers practical suggestions for ministering to this forgotten segment of society.

"I say to prisoners ... 'You have the power in Jesus Christ now to break the cycle of crime.'" - Manny Mill

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From OnePlace.com

Family News in Focus 01-01-08

Highlights:

How do Americans interpret the term “family values” … and does it cut any ice with politicians?

Advertising on a popular classified website extends way past where Christians want to go

There’s a debate in Northern Europe about whether pre-schoolers should become sexually aware while their parents are at the office

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From OnePlace.com

Hillary Clinton a Win for All Women?

By Carrie K. Hutchens

There is even the "thought" (according to a news title) that if Hillary Clinton wins, it is a win for all women in the world? I have some rich farm land in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, too.

Let's get real. Oh no...a Dr. Phil phrase (nearly) slipped out of my keyboard. (Full Article)

Sights and Sounds of the Huckabee Campaign

If elections were about likability, I might be able to get behind Huckabee. He's shown a great sense of humor before, and does again in this clip when the reporter asks him if he'd rather vote for a dishonest Republican than an honest Democrat (he was probably thinking what I was thinking, that an "honest Democrat" is an oxymoron at the national level at least), but instead he told a couple of jokes and moved on.

But the election is about more than likeability. It's about taking the right stand on the issues, and unfortunately Huckabee's fallen woefully short in many areas on the issues.

Could I sit down with him and have an enjoyable chat: sure. But I'm not voting for someone to have pleasant chats with.

The Real Palestinian Objective

Have you ever wondered why it seems the Palestinians don't have the sense to take a deal when it's offered to them, and have the nation they claim they've long wanted?

After all, the UN resolution which created Israel in 1947 also created a Palestinian state...which the Palestinians promptly rejected and thus began the 60 years of Arab-Israeli conflict.

By most accounts, they were also on the verge of a great deal in 2000 when Bill Clinton strong-armed a deal that frankly should have been humiliating for Ehud Barak to make. Why did the Palestinians walk away from that, only to start a new round of bloodshed?

A piece by Hillel Halkin at Commentary Magazine entitled "The Peace Planners Strike Again" may have some answers.

If Halkin is right, and I believe he is, it isn't so much because the Palestinians aren't smart enough to realize a good deal when they see it, but that peace is actually counter to their overall aim:

The Palestinians, after all, know that statehood will never enable them to defeat Israel on the battlefield by themselves; even were they not demilitarized, they can never possess the economic means to match Israel’s military might. What prospect they have of destroying Israel, or of weakening it to the point where additional territory could be wrested from it, would depend on one of two options. The first of these, championed by Hamas, is to resist the temptation of Palestinian independence and preserve the status quo until Israeli-Palestinian disentanglement becomes impossible and a bi-national state emerges whose Arab population with its higher birthrate inevitably becomes a majority.

The second option, preferred by the Palestinian “moderates,” is to choose statehood, however degrading its terms, while seeking to undermine Israel from within and keeping other Arab countries embroiled with it so that they remain military allies. These two ambitions would be related, for the more a growing and disgruntled Arab minority in Israel protests its second-class status, and the more Israel is accused of denying Palestinian refugees their “right of return,” the more the Arab world will go on nourishing hostile feelings toward it. If Israel does not fall by itself, a tiny Palestinian state could then still count on provoking a decisive war into which its Arab neighbors could be dragged when the right time came.

In other words, while the Palestinians would like a state, it is not their primary objective. Their primary objective is the annihilation of Israel. Pursuit of this objective supersedes even their own statehood.